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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



Chautauqua Society 



AJJGUST 11th, 1904, 



BY THE 



HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, 



Secretary of War. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



HAUTAUQUA 




IETY 



AUGUST 11th, 1904, 



BY THE 



HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, 



Secretary of War. 












By transfer 
NOV 8 190? 



ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



Chautauqua Society 

AUGUST 11th, 1904. 



Ladies and Gentle?nen : 

I have been invited into this great community of 
study, discussion and education, to say something on 
the subject' of the Philippines. 

The problem which the government of the United 
States is attempting to work out in the Philippine 
Islands is one in the c'ourse of which it encounters the 
severe criticism of conscientious critics who occupy 
exactly opposite standpoints. The English student of 
colonial government is fixed in his view that we have 
pursued a wrong course in the Philippine Islands by 
conferring upon the people much more popular con- 
trol than was wise and by attempting to give them an 
education, which instead of tending to improve mat- 
ters, will tend to create popular agitation and dis- 
content and constant conspiracy and plotting against 
the government. On the other hand, our American 
critics, who' like to describe themselves as Anti-Im- 
perialists, condemn the course of the United States in 
the islands on the ground that sufficient self-govern- 
ment has not been extended to the Filipinos and that 
immediate preparation is not being made to abandon 



i'o 



the islands to an independent government. Now it 
sometimes happens that the concurrence in condemna- 
tion of one's course, of people having exactly opposite 
views is a fairly good indication that the course taken 
is somewhat near that golden moon- — that line of 
average good — which should be the object of all practi- 
cal legislators and governors. I venture to think it is 
so in the present case. 

The problem set before the United States in assum- 
ing sovereignty over the Philippine Islands and estab- 
lishing and carrying on a government there for the 
benefit of the Filipinos, can hardly be wisely or prop- 
erly considered without a fairly good knowledge of the 
history of the islands so that the character of the peo- 
ple, their customs, their traditions, their aspirations 
may be understood and a course adopted to remedy the 
deficiencies of their civilization, of their education and 
of their present capacity for self-government. 

Magellan, in search of spices, was the first Euro- 
pean navigator who landed in the Philippine Islands 
and lost his life near the present city of Cebu in 1521. 
The archipelago was not really taken possession of as 
a colony of Spain until 1565. This was in the reign of 
Philip II. The proposed colonization of the Philip- 
pines seems to have had its motive not in gain, but in 
the desire to extend the Christian religion. The Philip- 
pine Islands were indeed a Christian mission rather 
than a Christian colony, and this characteristic has 
affected their history down to the present day. It is 
true that Legaspi, the former alcalde of the City of 
Mexico, who was sent out with Friar Urdaneta of the 
Augustinian Order, was directed to examine the ports 
of the Philippine Islands and to establish trade with 
the natives, and that the importance of winning the 
friendship of the natives was emphasized as a means of 
continuing the trade, but the viceroy of Philip II 



ordered Legaspi to treat the clergy with him (he had 
five Augustinian friars) with the utmost respect and 
consideration, so that the natives should hold them 
with respect "since," as he wrote to Legaspi, "you are 
aware that the chief thing sought after by His Majesty 
is the increase of the Holy Catholic Faith and the sal- 
vation of the souls of these infidels." In previous 
expeditions the sum of money paid for the trip was 
paid by adventurers who contributed part of the fund 
and who were aided from the royal treasury, the 
understanding being that there should be an equitable 
division of the profits between the adventurer and the 
King. Here, however, there was no adventurer con- 
nected with the expedition. It was a governmental 
expedition sent out by order of Philip II and he paid 
all the expenses. It soon became known that the 
islands were not likely to become profitable in any 
pecuniary sense to the Crown, and a contemporary 
writer says that when the King was informed that the 
Philippines were not rich in gold and pearls and that 
their occupation might not be lucrative but the reverse, 
he answered, "That is not a matter of moment; I am 
an instrument of Divine Providence ; the main thing is 
the conversion of the kingdom of Luzon, and God has 
predestined me for that end, having chosen me His 
King for that purpose, and since He has intrusted so 
glorious a work to me and my crown, I shall hold the 
islands of Luzon, even though by doing so I exhaust 
my treasury." 

Again, in 1619, in the reign of Philip III, the suc- 
cessor of the founder of the Philippine missions, it 
was proposed to abandon the Philippines on the 
ground of their useless expense to Spain. A dele- 
gation of Spanish friars from the archipelago' implored 
the King not to abandon the 200,000 Christians whom 
they had by that time converted, and the order was 
countermanded. 



The occupation of the islands took on a different 
aspect from that of the ordinary seeker for gold and 
profit and did not assume the character of the con- 
quests of Pizarro and Cortez. The natives were 
treated with the greatest kindness and consideration. 
The priests exerted the greatest efforts to conciliate 
them. The government was first established at Cebu, 
subsequently at Iloilo in Panay, and finally at Manila 
in 1 571. There was some fighting at Manila, of a 
desultory and not very bloody character, but Legaspi 
pursuing the direction of his superior, at once entered 
into negotiations with the natives. He found that 
there was no great chief in command but that the 
country was made up of a large number of petty chiefs 
— a chief to each town. They were jealous of each 
other and were easily induced to admit allegiance to 
the King of Spain and to come under the influence of 
the active missionary efforts of the friars who accom- 
panied Legaspi. I do> not know of another instance in 
which sovereignty was extended over so large a terri- 
tory and so many people (for the islands must then 
have had half a million inhabitants) with less blood- 
shed. When Legaspi's lieutenant — Salcedo— first 
visited Manila, he found the town itself under the con- 
trol of a rajah, and his priests found evidence of the 
presence among the people of Mohammedan priests 
who had not established themselves firmly. Un- 
doutedly if Legaspi had not at that time come into the 
islands we should find today that all the peoples of 
the archipelago were Mohammedan, instead of five 
per cent of them. The willingness of the natives to 
embrace Christianity, their gentle natures and their 
love of the solemn and beautiful ceremonies of the 
Catholic Church enabled the friars to spread Christ- 
ianity through the islands with remarkable rapidity. 
It should be borne in mind that these are a Malay 



people, that that nowhere in the world, except in the 
Philippine Islands, has the Malay been made a Chris- 
tian. In other places where the Malay race is, Moham- 
medanism first took control of it and there is no con- 
dition of mind which offers such resistance to the 
inculcating of Christianity as that produced among 
the followers of the prophet of Mecca. The Philippine 
Islands were a very long distance from Spain. Until 
the opening of the Suez Canal it took a year to write 
a letter and receive an answer from the home country. 
Men who went toi the islands, and especially the 
Monks, therefore felt that they were cutting them- 
selves off from communication with home, and were 
going for a lifetime. The friars learned the various 
dialects of the natives and they settled down to live 
with them as their protectors and guardians. In the 
first two hundred years of Spanish occupation the 
Crown had granted to various Spanish subjects large 
tracts of land called encomiendas. To those who occu- 
pied the encomiendas it was intended to give the 
character of feudal lords. They of course came into 
contact with the natives and attempted to use the 
natives for the development of their properties. The 
history of the islands until 1900 shows that the friars 
who had increased in number from time to time were 
constantly exercising their influence to restrain abuse 
of the natives by the encomienderos or large land- 
owners, and their efforts are seen in the royal decrees 
issued at their request, which were united into what 
were known as the "Laws of the Indies." It is very 
probable that the encomienderos frequently violated 
the restrictions which were put upon them in dealing 
with the natives ; but there is nothing to show that 
the friars winked at this or that they did not con- 
tinue to act sincerely as the protectors of the natives 
down to the beginning of the past century. Under the 



law a native could not be sued unless there was made 
party to the suit an official who was ordinarily a friar, 
known as "The Protector of the Indians." The 
encomiendero who had to do with the natives was not 
permitted to live in a town on his own estates where 
the natives were gathered together under the eaves of 
the church and the rectory. The friars exerted their 
influence to bring together the natives into larger 
towns near to the church and the convento or parish 
house, because they thought, and properly, that this 
would bring the natives more fully "under the bells" 
as they called it, or within religious influence. So 
great and complete became the control which the 
friars exercised over the natives by reason of their 
sincere devotion to their interests and their lifelong 
attention to the work of Christianizing and teaching 
the natives, that Spain had not the slightest difficulty 
in policing the islands for nearly three centuries. They 
induced the people to form towns near the coasts, where 
they could be easily reached, or in the midst of un- 
usually fertile country available for agriculture. One 
of the friars laid down this rule, which was adopted 
by his Order and approved by the government as early 
as 1580: 

"1. It is proper that pueblos should be formed, the 
missionaries being ordered to establish them- 
selves at a certain point where the Church and 
the parish house (convento) which will serve 
as a point of departure for the missions, will 
be built. The new Christians will be obliged 
to build their houses about the Church and 
the heathen will be advised to do so. 
'2. Elementary schools should be established in 
which the Indians will be taught not only 
Christian doctrine and reading and writing, 
but also arts and trades, so that they may 
become not only good Christians, but also 
useful citizens." 



1 1 . 



The Spanish military force in the Philippines in 
1600 was 470 officers and men. In 1636 this had 
increased to 1,762 Spaniards and 140 natives. From 
1828 to 1896 the Spanish forces varied from 1,000 to 
3,000 officers and men. In 1896, just before the revo- 
lution, the army included 18,000 men, of whom 3,000 
were Spaniards, and a constabulary of 3,500 men, most 
of whom were natives. The Spaniards, but not the 
natives, were until 1803, subject to the jurisdiction of 
the Inquisition. Idolatries, heresies and errors of 
belief committed by the natives were brought before 
the bishop of the diocese, but not before the Holy 
Office. Although the natives held slaves upon the 
arrival of the Spaniards, the custom was discouraged 
by a law forbidding Spaniards to hold natives as 
slaves and by prohibiting judges from deciding in 
cases of dispute, whether a man was a slave, so that 
a slave appearing before the court was ordinarily 
liberated. In Cavite the friars maintained a hospital 
for sick sailors ; in Manila, Los Banos and Caceres 
were hospitals for sick natives ; in Manila, Pila and 
Caceres were hospitals for Spaniards, the clergy and 
natives who could afford to pay. In Manila was main- 
tained a hospital for sick negro slaves. Between 1591 
and 161 5, the friars of the Philippines had sent mis- 
sionaries to Japan, who devoted themselves to the 
succor of the poor and needy there and especially the 
lepers of that country, so that they had, when the 
ports of that country were closed, about 32 priests. 
Twenty-six of them were crucified or burned alive. 
When the Mikado expelled the Christians and closed 
his ports to the world, he sent to the Governor Gen- 
eral of the Philippines three junks laden with 150 
lepers, with a letter in which he stated that as the 
Spanish friars were so anxious to provide for the poor 
and afflicted, he sent them a cargo of men who were 



really sorely oppressed. These unfortunates were 
taken ashore and housed in the leper hospital of San 
Lazaro in Manila, which is today used for a similar 
purpose. 

I draw much of what I have said from an introduc- 
tion by Captain John R. M. Taylor, of the 14th In- 
fantry, Assistant to the Chief of the Bureau of Insular 
Affairs, who is engaged in compiling original docu- 
ments connected with the Philippines, with notes and 
introduction. Speaking of what the friars did in the 
islands, Captain Taylor says : 

"To accomplish these results required untiring 
energy and a high enthusiasm among the mission- 
aries, in whom the fierce fires of religious ardor 
must have consumed many of the more kindly 
attributes of humanity. Men who had lived 
among savages, trying to teach them the advant- 
ages of peace and the reasonableness of a higher 
life, who had lived among them speaking their 
tongues, until they had almost forgotten their 
own, when promoted to the high places in the 
religious hierarchy, must have felt that their sole 
duty was to increase the boundaries of the vine- 
yard in which they had worked so long. Spain had 
ceased to be everything to them ; their order was 
their country, and the cure of souls and the 
accumulation of means for the cure of souls was 
the truest patriotism. * * * They were shep- 
herds of a very erring flock. Spanish officials 
came and went, but the ministers of the church 
remained, and as they grew to be the interpreters 
of the wants of the people, in many cases their 
protectors against spoliation, power fell into their 
hands. * * * In 1719 the Governor General 
Fernando de Bustamente, was excommunicated 
by the Archbishop of Manila, whom in return he 

10 



imprisoned in Fort Santiago. A riot followed, in 
which the Governor-General and his son were 
murdered. The Archbishop was released by the 
people, took possession of the office of Governor- 
General, and held it for two years, when he was 
transferred to the charge of a diocese in New 
Spain." 
The influence of the friars was thrown against the 
investigation and development of the resources of the 
Philippines. The priests knew that the development 
of the mines in Peru and Mexico had meant suffering 
and death to many of the natives, and it was thought 
better to let the mines in the Philippines, if mines 
there were, lie undeveloped. There were but a few 
Spanish merchants who lived permanently in the 
islands, and these were chiefly engaged in the trans- 
shipment of Asiatic merchandise from Manila, and not 
much interested in Philippine merchandise as such, so 
that they assisted but little the internal development 
of the islands. Taxes were light, there was no money 
to make improvements on a large scale, or to establish 
many schools. One Spanish-speaking priest among 
three or four thousand natives could do little in spread- 
ing the knowledge of the language. Indeed it is prob- 
able that apart from the convenience, for purposes of 
administration, of the priest learning the language of 
his parish, rather than requiring the parishioners to 
learn his, it was deemed expedient from a religious 
point of view to keep the people isolated by their 
ignorance of a common tongue. To know Spanish 
meant contact with the outside world and the priests 
feared not civilization, but the evils of civilization. 
Material civilization, the modern progress with steam 
and iron, seemed to the Spanish missionaries of little 
worth, compared with keeping their people unspotted 
from the world. 

11 



A decree of the Governor-General of the Philippines 
in 1857 is cited as an example of legislation of a gov- 
ernment controlled by ecclesiastical authorities. This 
decree was promulgated for the purpose of suppressing 
the publications which were destroying good morals, 
and introducing the irreligious ideas which prevailed 
outside of Spain. A censor was appointed, and he was 
directed to see that no books entered the Philippines 
except through Manila. All writings were to be sub- 
mitted to the Archbishop of Manila, and nothing could 
be published without his authority. When his per- 
mission had been obtained, then that of the civil gov- 
ernment was necessary. It is evident that it was 
intended to deprive the people of the knowledge of 
both good and evil, and to secure in the Philippines a 
return to primeval simplicity and ignorance of things 
pernicious. 

This history of the establishment and maintenance 
of the control of the Philippine Islands and of the 
Philippine people by a thousand Spanish friars, more 
or less, at once prompts the question how it has come 
about that the Philippine people now manifest such 
hostility to those who were for 250 years their sincere 
and earnest friends and protectors. There were many 
circumstances leading to the change, but it will be 
sufficient to mention only two or three. The intimate 
and affectionate relation existing between the friars 
and their native parishioners had led to the education 
of a number of natives as priests, and to the accept- 
ance of a number of natives as members of the reli- 
gious, orders. Before 1800 it is stated that of the 
bishops and archbishops who had been appointed in 
the islands, twelve were natives ; but after the first 
years of the 19th century no' such places of preferment 
were offered to the natives ; and after 1832 no natives 
were allowed to become members of the religious 

12 



orders. In 1767 the Jesuits were, by the Pragmatic 
Sanction of Charles the Third banished from the 
islands, and their properties taken from them and con- 
fiscated. They were at the time very powerful and 
rich, and the thirty-two parishes which they had 
administered were now given over, through the influ- 
ence of a secular Archbishop, to native priests. The 
parishes were chiefly in Cavite, Manila and Bulacan. 
It is quite evident that by the beginning of the 19th 
century there began to be a feeling or a cleavage 
between the native secular clergy and the friars. The 
change in policy, by which the native clergy were 
denied a preferment in the hierarchy, and the exclusion 
of natives from the religious orders, heightened this 
feeling of antagonism. In 1852 the Jesuits were pei- 
mitted to return, and the order permitting their return 
directed that they should receive thirty-two parishes 
in the island of Mindanao. Those parishes had been 
occupied by Recolletos, the bare-footed branch of the 
Augustinian Order. The Recolletos demanded that if 
they were turned out of their parishes in Mindanao, 
they should be restored to the parishes occupied by the 
native secular clergy in Cavite, Manila and Bulacan 
which had been originally Jesuit parishes. This pro- 
posal was resisted by the native secular clergy, but was 
nevertheless carried into effect. The bitterness of feel- 
ing thus engendered in the native clergy toward the 
friars spread easily among the people. 

Secondly, the friars had become, generally by pur- 
chase, large land owners. They held land enough to 
make up 250,000 acres in the-Tagalog provinces in the 
immediate neighborhood of Manila. This land which 
was rented by them to thousands of tenants was the 
best cultivated land in the islands, and was admirably 
suited for the cheap conveyance of the crops to market. 
Charges were made that the friars were collecting 

13 



exorbitant rents, and agrarian difficulties arose, which 
however unjust they may have been, contributed very 
decidedly to the .growing feeling on the part of the 
native people against their former friends and pro- 
tectors. Finally, the construction of the Suez canal 
brought the islands into comparatively close communi- 
cation with Spain, and hordes of Spanish adventurers 
came to the islands. Republican or liberal political 
views which were then rife in Spain, leading later to 
the formation for a time of a republic, reached Manila, 
and found lodgment among the educated Filipinos, and 
led to an uprising and so-called insurrection of 1870. 
In the absence of troops, the Spanish government 
looked to the parish priests, who were most of them 
friars, to do what was necessary in the way of policing 
the islands. By custom, and subsequently by law, the 
parish priest was given complete supervisory power 
over his municipal government. His civil functions 
became very many, and his chief duty seems to have 
been to report to the authorities the persons in his 
parish, or any persons whose political views or actions 
were hostile to the Spanish regime. By reason of the 
antagonism of the native priests, and the spread of 
views hostile to the government among the people, 
the friars were driven into a reactionary policy and 
attitude, which placed them in opposition to the people, 
and led the people to make them responsible for the 
severity with which the Spanish government in the 
islands punished any expression of liberal political 
opinions. In other words, by the necessities of the 
situation, the friars were made political factors of the 
greatest importance in support of the Spanish regime. 
This it was, taken with their attitude as land owners 
and their opposition to the native priests, that created 
such a hostility against them on the part of the Fili- 
pino people. So bitter was this hostility that in th« 

11 



revolution of 1898 there were forty friars killed and 
300 imprisoned, and they were only released by the 
advance of the American forces, and the capture of the 
towns in which they were confined. 

I have at various times discussed the dilemma which 
was presented to the United States after the battle of 
Manila Bay and the taking of the City of Manila, the 
signing - of the protocol, and when the question arose 
as to what form the Treaty of Peace should take. It 
is not my purpose now to review the discussion, which 
has convinced me that the course which was taken, to- 
wit, that of assuming sovereignty over the islands, was 
the only course which was honorabty open to the 
United States. The transfer of a people from a sover- 
eignty like that of Spain, in which the church and the 
government and the state were so closely united that 
the possessions and functions of each it is at times very 
difficult to distinguish, to a sovereignty like that of the 
United States, in which the church and state must be 
separate, has presented a number of most interesting 
questions for readjustment and settlement, and these 
questions have been much complicated by the political 
bearing which the hostility of the people toward the 
friars and the friars' ownership of large agricultural 
holdings had upon the situation. I should like, if time 
would permit, to discuss what has been done in the 
settlement of these religious questions, and to show, as 
I could show, how they are being satisfactorily ad- 
justed, due to the patience, liberality and absence of 
narrow sectarian prejudice on the part of Catholics and 
Protestants alike interested in the matter, but my 
present paper cannot include this interesting history 
for lack of time. I have reviewed the peculiar history 
of the Philippine people with a view of explaining what 
is necessary in their education to make them self-gov- 
erning, and I have written this paper to show why I 

15 



think the problem is one possible of solution. What 
I should like to emphasize is the peculiar character of 
the Filipino people due to this history of theirs which 
I have summarized. The Spanish statistics show that 
/ about 7 per cent of the people speak Spanish, and that 
the remainder speak some local dialect. One of the 
most reliable authorities on the subject is Mr. Barrows, 
present General Superintendent of Education in the 
islands. He was for some time the Chief of the Bureau 
of Ethnological Survey, and he has probably done more 
than anyone else since our advent to the islands, cer- 
tainly in investigating and learning the diversity of 
language, race and customs of the natives. In his last 
report, the one for 1903, he points out that in the terri- 
tory occupied by the Christian Filipinos there are 
twelve different dialects. He says : 

"The question has been frequently raiseol 
whether these Filipino languages are sufficiently 
related so as to fuse into one common tongue, and 
the bureau of education has received its most 
vigorous criticism in the United States because of 
its alleged attempt to supplant and destroy what 
might, in the opinion of absentee critics, become a 
national and characteristic speech. Such critic- 
isms could onlv proceed from a profound ignor- 
ance of' the nature of these languages and the peo- 
ple who speak them. All of t hese Hialec tg_helong 
to onecojmniin N ^aJ J a^an stock. Their grammati- 
cal structure is the same. The sentence in each 
one of them is built up in the same way. The 
striking use of affixes and suffixes which gives 
the speech its character is common to them all. 
There are, moreover, words and expressions iden- 
tical to them all. A hundred common words could 
readily be selected which would scarcely vary 
from one language to another ; but the fact stilJ 

Id 



remains different in vocabulary — so different that 
two members of any two differ ent tr ibes brought 
together are unable to converse, or at first even 
make themselves understood for the simplest steps 
of intercourse. The similarity in structure makes 
it very easy for a Filipino of one tribe to learn the 
language of another, but nevertheless these lan- 
guages have preserved their distinctions for more 
than three hundred years of European rule and in 
the face of a common religion and in spite of con- 
siderable migration and mixture between the dif- 
ferent tribes. This is true where different popu- 
lations border one another as elsewhere. In no 
case is there any indication that these languages 
are fusing. The Filipino adheres to his native 
dialect in its purity, and when he converses with 
a Filipino of another tribe ordinarily uses broken 
Spanish. These languages are not destined to dis- 
appear or to fuse, nor are they destined to have a 
literary development." 
The people whose means of communication are 
limited to a native dialect, with little or no literary 
knowledge, confined to a few provinces, even if they 
are able to read and write in that dialect, are so limited 
in their opportunity for obtaining information that 
they cannot be said to be in communication with the 
modern world at all. 'Now the Spanish estimate is that 
about 93 per cent of the people of the islands are unable 
to speak Spanish, and are therefore confined to their 
own dialects. They are Christians. They are gen- 
erally sincere Christians. Under the theocracy which 
the friars maintained in the islands they were generally 
simple, 'attentive to their religious duties, lovers of 
their families, with the Oriental weakness for gamb- 
ling; but they were temperate, law-abiding and 
respectful of authority. They were not overly indus- 

17 



trious, but they were used to work at the direction of 
their encomienderos, or under the influence of their 
parish priest. They had learned a little catechism, and 
they were in a state of Christian pupilage. I am now 
describing the great body of the people who are to be 
distinguished from the illustrados, or educated mem- 
bers of the community. That great body of the people 
I think certainly may be fairly estimated as 90 per cent. 
Of the 90 per cent a part may read and a part may read 
and write their native dialects, but they do not know 
Spanish, and they are so separated from modern civil- 
izing influences that their ignorance, their capacity for 
being led and controlled by others can hardlv be under- 
stood by those of us who< have lived in an atmosphere 
of freedom and civil liberty. With the friars gone, and 
no control exercisable through them, they are subject 
to influence by any one of their people who has wealth 
and education. jThey can be led about by the nose. 
During the disturbed conditions in the islands when 
war prevailed during the years from 1898 to 1901 the 
most atrocious crimes were committed by taos, hum- 
ble, ignorant, but apparently peaceable and non-vicious 
persons, simply because they were told by rich and 
wealthy Filipinos, or Filipinos of official position, that 
they must do so. They proceeded to bury people alive, 
or to cut their throats, or to chop them into pieces, 
with the imperturbability of the Oriental, supposing 
that they were entirely relieved from responsibility be- 
cause of the direction given them by their superiors in 
education and wealth of their own people. This is what 
is called caciqueismo. It is the subjection of the ordi- 
nary uneducated Filipino to a boss or master who lives 
in his neighborhood, and who by reason of his wealth 
and education is regarded as entitled to control by the 
ignorant tao. There is, however, no fixed feudal rela- 
tion. The population is mobile. First one leader, then 

18 



another can take control and lead in any direction, pro- 
vided he understands the people, knows how to appeal 
to them, and is looked upon by them as an educated 
and wealthy Filipino. 

Though the Christian Filipinos are divided into ten 
or twelve different tribes, which means that they speak 
different dialects, there is a strong racial resemblance 
and there is also* growing stronger each year a racial 
or national feeling among them. Without exactly 
understanding its difficulties or its benefits, they aspire 
to ultimate independence. Of course the more ignor- 
ant the person, the less active is this feeling, but it is 
quite easy for an educated Filipino to arouse this senti- 
ment among his ignorant fellow countrymen. They 
have no caste among them, no traditions which pre- 
vent the development of the people along European 
and American lines-. Their Christian education has 
led them to understand and embrace, when sufficiently 
educated, European and American ideals. Those who 
are educated and wealthy among them adopt European 
customs, European dress, European manners with 
eagerness. The children of the poorest and most 
ignorant learn with ease and their parents are ambi- 
tious that they should learn. They value the advant- 
age of education almost too highly in that they yield 
to the influence of educated men of their own race 
abjectly, and without restraint. The presence of Euro- 
peans among them for 300 years and the birth of many 
mestizos, that is, children of the mixed blood, followed 
by the natural interest of the Europeans in the mesti- 
zos, led to the education of the mestizos even before 
the Indios,. and so we find that the wealthy and edu- 
cated Filipinos are generally of the mixed blood. 
Taking their views from the Spaniards they have 
favored liberty in the abstract and equality and fratern- 
ity. But there is a very decided feeling on the part of 

19 



the wealthy educated Filipino that he is far removed 
from the, ordinary tao or ordinary workman or farmer. 
This is not true, for the ordinary ignorant Filipino 
taken as a child can be educated and made quite as 
much of a civilized being as the wealthy Filipino that 
we find today. In other words the capacity for 
development of the ninety per cent of ignorant Fili- 
pinos is fairly shown in the education and refinement 
that we find in the comparatively small educated class 
in the islands. This educated class is quick, bright, 
full of courtesy, brave, looks down on manual labor, 
theoretically in favor of civil liberty, patriotic, most 
sensitive in respect to criticisms of his class or people, 
but on the whole anxious to receive and accept new 
ideas, in dress, in education or in government. They 
are natural speakers, fluent, graceful and composed. 
They enjoy dealing in the glittering generalities and 
exalt always liberty and independence. As we know 
liberty is not a matter of phrases ; it is not brought 
about by mere pronunciemento or declaration of law; 
it is secured to the individual through certain second- 
ary methods of machinery, by which the individual 
can himself set the law in motion to protect him in 
the rights fundamentally declared. Now the Filipino 
naturally has no familiarity with that ancillary 
machinery by which rights are secured to an indi- 
vidual. When he establishes a government he knows 
no' other method than to place the power in the chief 
executive and to look to that chief executive to remedy 
wrong to secure progress, and to help the general wel- 
fare. Let me illustrate what I say : Several weeks 
after I reached Manila and before the Commission 
began work as a legislative body I was called on by 
an old Tagalog who did not speak Spanish, who' pre- 
sented to me a petition asking that his son, who had 
been confined in Bilibid Prison for six years under the 



20 



Spanish regime be released on the ground that he had 
never been tried on the charge for which he was 
arrested. There was present at the time this petition 
was handed to me a distinguished lawyer of the Philip- 
pines who had taken part in the preparation of the so- 
called Constitution of Malolos. He had been one of 
the draughtsmen of that instrument. I called his atten- 
tion to the petition and suggested that he take steps 
to assist the old man. He asked me what he could do. 
I told him to get out a writ of habeas corpus, because 
provision for that writ had been made by General Otis. 
He asked me what the Writ of Habeas Corpus was and 
when I told him, asked me if I would prepare a petition 
for him. I did so, he took the petition, went to the 
prison and learned that there were about ninety prison- 
ers who were in exactly the same situation as the son 
of the petitioner. He presented a petition for habeas 
corpus in each of the cases and the ninety were 
released. Now this illustrates the difference between a 
general declaration in favor of liberty and the practical 
operation of laws which secure the liberty thus 
declared. The Spanish law was full of declarations of 
liberty, in favor of the citizen, but it afforded no instru- 
mentality to be used by the citizen himself to assert 
his right and secure it. The declarations in favor of 
liberty were operative upon the judge or upon the 
executive officer, and if he disregarded them there was 
no means by which the individual could enforce in a 
court of justice a hearing of his wrong and a remedy 
of it. The Anglo-Saxon liberty has been fought out 
on the basis of protection to the individual, and our 
ancestors were very acute to secure to the individual 
the means of asserting the rights which the Magna 
Charter declared were inviolable. 

Another distinction between the English and Ameri- 
can systems of government and administration of jus- 

21 



tice and the Filipino system, is in the sense of respon- 
sibility that each citizen and person in the community 
feels in the enforcement of the rights of the public 
as against an individual who violates them. The right 
of the sheriff to call to his aid bystanders to assist him 
in enforcing the law is a right to invite them to do 
that which the ordinary Anglo-Saxon is prone to do at 
any rate — to see that the law is upheld. The Latin or 
the Spaniard and so, even more so, the Filipino, looks 
upon the action of the government as the action of 
something different entirely from the individual, not 
as an entity made up of individuals and representing 
the rights of all, but as a distinct entity — the State — 
which must protect itself. No Filipino would think of 
rushing to the assistance of a public officer attempting 
to arrest a known thief; would think of complaining of 
the commission of a crime unless that crime affected 
him in his person or property ; so that we find among 
the Filipinos, especially this large ignorant majority, 
first, a lack of knowledge as to what their rights are, 
and second, a lack of knowledge even if they know 
what their rights were, as to how they could assert 
them, and third, an entire absence of any responsibility 
for the action of the government in preserving order 
or enforcing law. 

These characteristics show the difficulty that exists 
in the Philippine Islands in granting to the great 
ignorant majority civil rights. They may be granted 
on the statute book but they are too ignorant to under- 
stand what they are or how they can be asserted. 
Then they are in exactly as subject a condition as if the 
rights were not granted to them. It therefore becomes 
the duty of a government like that we are establishing 
among them, to see to it that the people are educated 
sufficiently to know what their rights are and are 
advised as to how such rights can be asserted. And 

22 



this education, this training- in the assertion of their 
own rights, is even more essential when we come to 
the proposition that there shall be extended to the peo- 
ple at large, any measure of self-government and 
especially if we intend to introduce among them the 
system of jury trial. The power of self-government is 
not a government of self alone, but is a government of 
other people. Self-government is only possible when 
there is implanted in the breast of those who partake 
in it some sense of responsibility as to the government 
of all. With respect to the system of jury trial, that 
requires on the part of the people among whom it is 
to be introduced, a sense of public responsibility which 
will enable the jurymen to sit in a judicial frame of 
mind, weighing the rights of the individual as. against 
the public interest in a just punishment of crime. The 
jury trial has failed in Porto Rico because it has not 
been found possible as yet to instill in the minds of 
the people who sit on the juries, any sense of respon- 
sibility in regard to the -punishment of the defendant. 
The juror empannelled there does not understand that 
the jury is a tribunal upon the just operation of which 
depends the welfare of society and that if he votes to 
free every defendant, crime will be rife and the vicious 
will prey upon the community. It is the failure to 
identify themselves with the government as part of 
it and as responsible for its proper administration, and 
as interested in its proper administration, that renders 
the great body of the Filipino people at present unfit 
for complete self-government and the introduction of 
the system of jury trial. Education is necessary and 
not only education by primary schools and secondary 
schools, but a training in partial self-government such 
as to teach the individual governmental responsibility 
and to make him understand that public offices should 
be administered for the benefit of the public and not 

23 - 



merely as the property of the individual, a lesson which 
I regret to say he rarely learned under the Spanish 
regime as it existed in the Philippines. And this lesson 
of public responsibility which a man must have either 
as a citizen or as a public officer among people well fit 
for self-government, is a lesson which the wealthy and 
the educated class among the Filipinos have yet to 
learn. They are learning it by actual experience in 
taking part in the government, but it requires a con- 
siderable period. 

Now, another thing is needed in successful and satis- 
factory self-government, and that is the existence of 
a reasonable, intelligent public opinion. Today in the 
Philippines this is altogether absent. The ninety per 
cent of' the Filipino people who are separated from 
knowledge of the modern world by ignorance of any 
civilized language, and who must learn all that they 
do learn through the very insufficient communication 
to them in their own dialect of what is going on, and 
of modern ideas, cannot be expected to exercise that 
tremendous instrument which is the most potent factor 
in self-government, operating as a restraint upon even 
the most brazenly dishonest administrator of public 
office. To have such a public opinion, with a manifest 
solidarity that shall give it force, the people must be 
educated to think alike and in a common language to 
express the thoughts that they have on the subject 
of good government. They must first be taught to 
know how important good government is to their wel- 
fare and secondly, to express their opinion in the 
various ways open to them and in a language which 
shall be common to them, against malversation and 
abuses in office and in the carrying on of the govern- 
ment. 

It seems to me that I have said sufficient now, first, 
to show that we had in the Philippine Islands when we 

24 



went there, a people who were tractable, capable of 
education, with proper ideals, free from obstructive 
caste and unprogressive traditions, who would form 
good material for the making of them a self-respecting, 
self-governing community, provided that we furnish to 
them the education necessary for their development. 
You will observe that they differ utterly from all the 
material which England has had in her tropical col- 
onies and dependencies. They are the only Orientals 
who have accepted Christianity and embraced it with 
real sincerity as a people. They are the only Orientals 
that have no other ambitions and ideals than those fur- 
nished them by European models. They are the only 
Orientals that aspire to civil liberty, as shown in the 
western world, and the problem of what we shall do 
with them is therefore immensely easier than it would 
be if they were Mohammedans or Buddhists and as 
separated from us in their ideas as the inhabitants of 
India are from the ideas of an Englishman or the peo- 
ple of Java from the ideas of a Dutchman. They, 
therefore, in their government require different treat- 
ment. We in America believe in popular self-govern- 
ment. We believe in it because in the long run we are 
sure that each man can be depended on with reasonable 
intelligence to protect his own interest more con- 
stantly, that he can be trusted to look after the 
interests of another. Hence the problem which the 
United States has had set before it is the question of 
how best to educate the Filipino people to be a self- 
governing people. 

It was determined that the first step was the educa- 
tion of the present generation of children in the prim- 
ary and secondary schools and in English. The gov- 
ernment was convinced that no greater benefit could 
be conferred upon these people than to have a common 
means of communication, and that, one that will enable 

26 



them to be at home anywhere in the East, for English 
is the language of the Orient. Moreover it is the 
language of free government; it is the language of 
Anglo-Saxon freedom ; it is the language through 
which they can read the histor)'- of the hammering out 
by our ancestors of the heritage of liberty which we 
have had conferred upon us. Secondly, it was thought 
wise to extend to the Filipinos as large a measure of 
self-government as was consistent with reasonably 
good administration in order that by actual practice* 
>■ in self-government they might become skilled in it and 
sufficiently skilled to have the measure of self-govern- 
ment increased from time to time. Thirdly, it was 
determined to establish among them a judicial system 
which should secure to' them absolute justice and 
which should teach them not only the possibility of its 
administration but should accustom them to the atti- 
tude of impartiality of the just judge, and enable them 
by constant example to acquire the habit of being just 
and impartial themselves especially with respect to 
governmental matters and in the exercise of their func- 
tions as citizens. 

The educational system of the Philippine Islands is 
one of very rapid growth, and it is even now by no 
means' adequate, as I shall explain. Long before the 
civil government was established in the islands, the 
military commanders of the United States forces were 
impressed with the necessity of introducing even while 
war was flagrant, schools for the education of the 
children of the Filipinos. So it was that from each 
company' there was detailed at least one teacher, who 
was directed to open schools in all the towns whether 
infected with sedition and insurrection or not. Of 
course, the soldiers who were detailed for this purpose 
were, many of them, not educated teachers, and the 
system thus inaugurated in its nature was temporary 

26 



and full of defects. Nevertheless, it showed the genius 
of the American people that even among their soldiers, 
waging a war to subdue insurrection among the Fili- 
pino people, there should be found an earnest desire 
and effort to better the people by education. 

When the civil government was established a much 
more comprehensive educational system was adopted. 
It was determined to bring from the United States a 
thousand school teachers and to spread them over the 
islands, first, to teach school and second, to teach Fili- 
pino teachers English, and how to teach English. It 
was an ambitious plan and one which was carried 
through with remarkable celerity. The hurry in the 
selection of the teachers and the rapidity of organiza- 
tion of course left much to be desired. At first, the 
novelty of the teaching attracted all the Filipinos and 
there was a rush to the schools. Then when it was 
found that the learning of English and the studies 
which were taught required constant attendance and 
work on the part of the pupils, the . enrollment and 
attendance fell off. Then too, the Filipino people, a 
large majority of them, are Catholics. They had been 
accustomed to the teaching of religion in the schools 
organized under the Spanish regime. Many of the 
American teachers were Protestants and the devout 
parents of the Filipino children had suspicions that the 
schools might be used as proselyting instruments. 
Provision was made, however, in the school law for the 
teaching of religion after hours to the pupils and in 
many places it has been arranged so that while the 
pupils attend the secular school in the morning they 
attend the church school in the afternoon. Both 
enrollment and attendance has fallen off in the year 
1902 for the reasons given, but there was renewed 
interest in the schools in the latter part of 1902 and the 
year 1903, until in August September, 1903, the total 

27 



enrollment of pupils reached in the islands 173,000 with 
a percentage of attendance of 73 or 74 per cent. This 
was 13 per cent of the youth of school age of the Fili- 
pino Christians, not including the night school attend- 
ance. 

The number of American teachers had been reduced 
by illness, withdrawal and resignation from 950 to 700, 
but the school authorities have been engaged in filling 
the quota (1,000) during the present year. The Ameri- 
can teachers are centered in 338 towns out of the 934 
total towns in the entire archipelago. It will be seen 
that we could use 3,000 American teachers if we had 
the money to pay for them, but the revenues are 
limited, and we must cut our clothes to suit our cloth. 
There are in the islands about 2,000 primary schools in 
operation. These employ the services of upwards of 
3,000 Filipino teachers. Instruction is given wholly 
in English. The only texts used are English texts, 
and the teaching approximates American methods. 
The subjects taught are English language, primary 
arithmetic and primary geography, with supplementary 
reading in Philippine and American history, and in 
elementary humane physiology. The schoolhouses 
are crowded to the very limits of health and efficiency, 
and Filipino teachers are teaching on an average of 40 
pupils. We are also engaged in teaching the Filipino 
teachers. There are now 400 well-advanced pupils in 
the Normal School at Manila, which is a school in con- 
tinuous operation, and then there are held in all the 
districts normal institutes in which the native Filipino 
teachers receive instruction for two or three months 
during the year. The percentage of attendance upon 
these normal institutes is remarkably high. In the 
Province of Batangas there were 301 who attended the 
eight weeks' sessions of the normal institute, and the 
average attendance was 296. There were two schools, 

28 




one at Lipa and one at Batangas. From iSfto ioo 
candidates were refused admittance at each school, 
because they were not able to fulfill the requirements 
for entrance. The candidate for a teacher's position 
and for admittance to the school must have had some 
previous instruction in English, as much at least as a 
term in a day school, or its equivalent in night school 
work, or elsewhere. Second, the candidate must be 
readfy to accept a position as teacher immediately on 
finishing the course. Third, the candidate must be not 
less than 16 years of age nor more than "K. Fourth, 
the candidate must attend regularly and study. This 
last requirement proved unnecessary, as there was 
great enthusiasm and steadfastness on the part of all. 
This picture of the Batangas Summer Institute for 
teaching teachers is repeated in every district in the 
islands, and furnishes, together with the very great 
enthusiasm of those who attend the 'Normal School in 
Manila, where they obtain of course a much more 
thorough education, the right to suppose that the pre- 
paration of the needed 10,000 Filipino 1 teachers for 
teaching the primary English studies throughout the 
islands is a matter of only a few years. 

I may stop, incidentally, to say that the influence of 
the American teachers spread throughout the im- 
portant towns of the islands has been most beneficial. 
They are the almoners' of the government's bounty. 
They collect no taxes, but they merely confer a benefit 
upon the people. Coming in this guise they are able 
to exert a tremendous influence over the Presidente, the 
municipal council, and the principales of the com- 
munity in which they live, if they exercise tact and 
show real enthusiasm and interest in work. They 
exert a further influence by opening night schools to 
which only adults are admitted. It is a very common 
thing to find in a town of thousands of inhabitants that 

29 



the American teacher is at night engaged in teaching a 
class which includes the Presidente of the town and 
several of his family, and perhaps a number of the 
municipal councillors, who are anxiously studying 
English with a view to its use for governmental and 
business purposes. This relation thus established 
between the American teacher and the people of influ- 
ence in each community has worked great good in 
inducing the people to believe that the intention of the 
Government is benevolent toward the Filipino people. 
We are expending about two. millions of dollars 
annually from the central treasury of the islands for 
education. In addition to this, one-fourth of the money 
raised for municipal purposes is devoted to the primary 
public schools. Now in addition to the primary schools 
it has been found necessary to> establish secondary 
schools. This was made necessary in order to secure 
the attendance of the children of the wealthy and 
educated classes in addition to those of the poor fam- 
ilies, because they were desirous that their children 
should obtain a higher education. The only schools 
in which they could obtain this higher education, if 
secondary schools were not established by the Govern- 
ment, were the Jesuit schools in Manila, where they 
teach Spanish and not English. The secondary schools 
are extremely popular. They have been established in 
nearly all the provinces, and are doing remarkable 
work. Of course their standard is not as high as that 
of our high schools and a graduate from one of them 
would hardly be fitted to enter Yale or Harvard, but 
they are being taught English thoroughly. They are 
getting a substantial academic education. In order to ■ 
support the provincial schools a part of the taxation 
for provincial purposes is appropriated. The establish- 
ment of a secondary system of schools is preliminary- 
only to the establishment of a university in Manila. 

30 



This, however, has been delayed for want of funds, but 
is a great necessity. It is an opportunity for any 
wealthy American who takes an interest in the Fili- 
pinos to perpetuate his name and do an immense 
amount of good. . It is doubtful whether the university 
ought to be in the City of Manila or whether it should 
be in the town of Baguio in Benguet, where the climate 
is SO' much more healthful. In Benguet at an altitude 
of 5,500 feet the thermometer ranges only from 45 to 
75. The whole country is covered with green grass 
and groves of fine pine trees, and the air is as invigorat- 
ing as at Bar Harbor or Murray Bay. It forms an 
ideal site for a university if it can be made easily acces- 
sible to Manila. A railroad now runs from Manila in 
the direction of Baguio 120 miles, and a continuance 
of that railroad for 55 or 60 miles up a road which the 
Government is now constructing would bring one to 
Baguio in seven or eight hours from Manila. Still it 
is possible that it will be thought better to establish 
the university in the largest city of the islands. 

In addition to the normal schools and normal insti- 
tutes, and secondary schools, in the preparation of 
Filipino teachers the government has also entered upon 
the course of sending one hundred Filipino students 
each year to America to prepare themselves in the 
schools, colleges and universities of America for teach- 
ing engineering or some other useful profession. The 
first hundred pupils have been here for nearly a. year 
and have made remarkable progress. They drink in, 
of course, in America, the spirit of our institutions and 
carry back to their home country something of the 
atmosphere of constitutional liberty. 

When the American teachers first came into the 
islands and were sent out into the interior many of 
them had to undergo hardships. The machinery of 
administration was not oiled and there were a good 

31 



many inconveniences due to a lack of efficient adminis- 
tration that led to loud complaints on the part of some 
of the teachers. A great many of these defects have 
been removed, and more than that most of the teachers 
have become acclimated and used to life in the Philip- 
pines. It was supposed last year when the contracts of 
the teachers originally brought there for two years had 
expired that we should lose more than half of them, 
but the event did not justify the anticipation. A great 
majority of the teachers remained, and remained 
because they were interested in their work and had 
found a sphere of action in which they were able to see 
their success. The teachers had been selected by 
reference to the heads of the universities and colleges 
of America and I am glad to> testify to the average ex- 
cellence of that band of teachers of nearly one thousand 
souls who came to the Philippines under the inspira- 
tion of the first call. They have done great work, and 
while there have been knaves and fools among them, 
whose delinquencies were reported in sensational 
papers, as a body they reflect great credit on the young 
graduates of the universities and colleges of America, 
and exemplify the wonderful adaptability that our 
American life inculcates in our sons and daughters. 
For years we shall have to keep in the islands a con- 
siderable number of American teachers to carry on our 
normal schools, and our secondary schools, and the 
university, if it be established, but as you will see from 
what I have said, the hope of the system is the prepara- 
tion of 10,000 Filipino teachers to teach the primary 
schools and possibly in the secondary schools. In no 
one feature of our present system is there so much 
reason for encouragement as in the enthusiasm and 
application of the Filipino teachers in seeking to fit 
themselves as English teachers. When they become 
properly prepared they will naturally be able to accept 

32 



a much less compensation than the American teachers, 
and this will enable us to use the money which can be 
devoted to educational purposes to- educate a great 
many more pupils than are now enrolled in the public 
schools. I am far from saying that the public school 
system in the Philippine Islands today is perfect. No 
one feels its defects more than I do, but I do asseverate 
with emphasis and confidence that the system has been 
carried sufficiently far to show that if the principles 
which have heretofore been established are carried out, 
and the plans which have been made for the future 
shall be followed, there will be in the Philippine Island 
a system of education which will revolutionize the 
character of the next generation, will introduce Eng- 
lish as a common language of all the tribes, and it will 
constitute a long step in the direction of fitting the 
people for self-government. 

I now come to the second step in the education of 
the people to be a self-governing people, and that is in 
making them a part of the government as it is. In the 
X year 1901 we established about 900 municipalities in 
the islands under a municipal code, which gave corrj^- 
pktf autonomy to the people of the municipality. The 
code was framed with a view to the customs of the 
people and with the knowledge of their previous muni- 
cipal administration, but was assimilated as far as pos- 
sible to the ordinary municipal code of the United 
States. It extended the franchise of voting to persons 
who had previously 'filled municipal office, to those 
who spoke and wrote English or Spanish, and to those 
who paid upon their property not less than $15 a year 
taxes. So limited is the education of the people that 
this rule of eligibility excludes all but about 15 per 
cent of the voters. I never heard any criticism what- 
ever upon this line of ^eligibility, but of course it shows 
a very wide departure from a universal franchise or 



33 



vl 



manhood suffrage. The fact that it is acquiesced in 
so generally is a confirmation of the view that from 
85 to 90 per cent of the people of the Philippine 
Islands are wholly unfitted to exercise governmental 
political control. Indeed, the experience with those 
voters who come within the rule of eligibility is such 
as conclusively to show that there are many who vote 
who- need much additional experience and education 
before they can be said to be fitted for self-govern- 
ment ; but we did not prepare the municipal code with 
the idea of securing the most efficient municipal gov- 
ernment only. Had we done so we might not have 
made the officers elective at all, as they are all now 
elective, but we considered the municipal government 
as the cradle of general self-government and we felt 
sure that in that school the best lessons of how a peo- 
ple can properly govern their governors could be 
taught. 

' Next, we organized the forty or more provinces of 
the archipelago. We provided a provincial board, in 
which two members should be appointed and one 
elected, that the Governor of the province. The pro- 
vision for his election is an election by a convention of 
the municipal councilmen of the towns of the province 
who themselves were elected by the people. Then by 
order of President McKinley there were added to the 
Commission charged with the duty of legislating for 
the islands three Filipino members, in order that the 
Filipino people might have representation therein. 
he Act of Congress of July 2, 1902, provides for the 
aking of a census in the Philippine Islands. This 
census has been taken. It provides that within two 
years after the publication of the census, which will 
take place between now and the first of January, there 
shall be elected a popular assembly by the qualified 
voters of the Christian provinces of the Filipino peo- 
ple. This popular assembly becomes a part of the law- 

34 



making power. The Commission acts as one house and 
the popular assembly as another. In this way the peo- 
ple, by electing members to an actually law-making 
body will get further experience in the business of 
governing themselves. In this way, has the promise 
of McKinley been carried out, that self-government 
would be extended to the people as rapidly as they 
show themselves fit for it. 

As a third step in the education of the people in self- 
government, we have instituted a jucb^ckaxv partv of 
Filipino judges and partly of American judges. We 
have provided that in the court of First Instance the 
judge may summon to his aid as advisers upon the 
facts two assessors from the citizens of the province. 
We have established a judiciary which has adminis- 
tered justice without fear or favor in every province of 
the islands. Americans and Filipinos, malefactors, 
delinquent criminal officials, or whatever their offense, 
have been brought to trial and punished without 
respect to race or color. The entire absence of parti- 
alitv by the courts toward the Americans has more 
than any other one thing in the islands, I think, con- 
vinced the Filipinos of the good intention of the gov- 
ernment and has illustrated to them actual justice 
according to their ideal. Such administration cannot 
but be the healthiest education to the people in learn- 
ing how to govern themselves and to administer gov- 
ernment for themselves. 

How long it shall be required to accomplish the 
object of those who instituted these processes of edu- 
cation of the people, is mere conjecture. Certainlv it 
ought to continue long enough under American aus- 
pices to insure its continuance and maintenance under 
the auspices of the Filipino people if they should see 
fit to establish independent government. If, however, 
the government were now turned over to the Filipino 
people without American guidance, then we can be 

35 



*907 



sure that the whole fabric of the educational system 
established by the American government in those 
islands would fall to pieces. The self-sacrifice, the 
patience and the knowledge necessary to the continu- 
ance of such a system of education are not to be found 
now even among the intelligent classes of the Filipino 
people. They are not sufficiently charged with the 
importance of maintaining all these instruments that 
I have described, for the purpose of elevating the poor 
and the common people. They are quite content with 
a government of the few. I was visited by a delegation 
of gentlemen wh® desired independence at once and 
who made an argument in its favor based on the 
ground which they solemnly stated that they had 
counted the number of the gente illustrada or educated 
people in the islands, and they had figured out the 
number of offices to be filled and had found that the 
number of educated people in the islands was more 
than double the offices to be filled. They reasoned, 
therefore, that as the offices could be filled twice — 
first by one party and then by the other party, by 
educated incumbents, the country was ready for self- 
government. I pointed out to them that the security 
and stability of a popular self-government depended 
upon the existence of free, intelligent public opinion, 
and that as long as ninety per cent of their people were 
in hopeless ignorance and in a mere state of Christian 
pupilage, subject to being led about by every wealthy 
educated demagogue, that should raise his voice, 
they could not expect the coming of firm or stable self- 
government from such a condition, and I say the same 
thing here. If the policy shall be followed which shall 
take away from the hands of the American government 
the power to do this people an infinite good by carry- 
ing out thoroughly the plan of education which I have 
outlined, it will be to every one who really knows the 
situation, a source of infinite regret. 



36 



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